


Never Let Me Go

by hschooler



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Angst, Darth Vader Has Issues, Darth Vader Needs a Hug, Dreams, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Honestly this is so angsty, Sad Darth Vader, Sad Ending, Sort of? - Freeform, That's Not How The Force Works (Star Wars), like actually it could not be less subtle, thinly veiled metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29540199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hschooler/pseuds/hschooler
Summary: Ahsoka was scrambling toward the edge of a cliff. her feet sunk into the rocky soil as though it was made of mud. her muscles burned with exertion and sweat dripped into her eyes as she put all her energy into reaching the cliff. Two hands clutched it’s edge, and she could see them slipping from here.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 10
Kudos: 42





	Never Let Me Go

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, this is my first fic and true to form it’s angsty and sad. I hope you enjoy!!

Ahsoka was scrambling toward the edge of a cliff. her feet sunk into the rocky soil as though it was made of mud. her muscles burned with exertion and sweat dripped into her eyes as she put all her energy into reaching the cliff. Two hands clutched it’s edge, and she could see them slipping from here. 

“Ahsoka!” Anakin yelled, open fear in his voice that she had never heard before. She supposed facing a potential 400-foot drop into a lava river might bring that out in some people. 

Finally, _finally_ she reached the cliff, wrapping her hands around Anakin’s arms and throwing her weight backwards. 

He barely budged. Ahsoka strained against his weight, sure the panicked look in his blue eyes was mirrored in her own. 

She reached out with the force, seeking to wrap it around him and float him to safety. she felt the first tendrils of it answer her, beginning to wrap around Anakin

And then it disappeared. 

They both let out a scream in tandem as Anakin almost dropped out of Ahsoka’s grip. 

Ahsoka groaned, dropping onto her stomach with the force of his fall. Her hands were wrapped so tightly around his wrists that she was sure she was piercing his skin with her nails. 

She panted, the sulfurous air choking her lungs as she tried to slow her breathing. Anakin’s life was on the line. She wouldn’t let him burn because she panicked. 

Finally she got her breath under control. Anakin had closed his eyes, but opened them upon feeling her shift. His eyes latched onto hers, never leaving her face as she began to pull, reaching deep inside of herself for whatever scraps of Force were left. 

Mutual waves of _lovepridegratitudepride_ washed down their bond, fanning the flame of whatever light was left. 

She finally got him up far enough that he could brace his arms against the cliff, could help her leverage his body weight. She let out something between a laugh and a sob as he grinned at her. 

“Snips,” he said, breathing heavily but his smile was there. 

She tightened her grip on his forearms, preparing to heave him the rest of the way up, when a blinding pain screamed down her back. 

Ahsoka screamed, the smell of burned flesh and the telltale buzz of a lightsaber fighting to take over her senses, as she lost her grip on Anakin. He slid back with a yell, catching himself on the edge once more. 

She scrambled forward, barely ducking in time to dodge a swipe of a lightsaber that would have taken her head off. 

She whirled around, halfway on her back even as debris pressed into her wound, grinding and abrasive against the burned skin. 

A tall, dark, nightmarish figure stood in front of her, brandishing a scarlet lightsaber. A black cape flowed behind the figure in an invisible wind, and horrible, mechanized breathing echoed from the skull shaped helmet. 

He stalked forward. Towards her. Towards Anakin. 

Ahsoka pulled herself across the ground, positioning herself in front of her Master who still hung off the cliff. 

The figure stopped in front of her, a sound almost like a scoff echoing from him. A horrible dark, energy wrapped around her and at the same time the figure stepped toward Anakin. The figure dragged her away with the Force, and brought his lightsaber down on her Master.   
Her friend. Her brother. 

Anakin didn’t even scream as he fell. 

The figure turned toward her, releasing his Force hold on her body. Tears flowed freely from her eyes, evaporating almost as soon as they left in the planet’s heat. 

His voice was flat, monotone, as he spoke. “Anakin Skywalker was weak. I destroyed him.”

Ahsoka pulled herself to the edge of the cliff, hoping to see—to see something. Her Master had always cheated the odds before. 

But there was nothing. Nothing in the air, in the lava river, or on the cliff. 

Nothing on the other end of their Force bond, where his whirlwind of self in the Force that was always steeped in pride and affection should be. 

A choked sob forced its way out of her throat. And she let herself scream as it did 

“ANAKIN!”

Ahsoka awoke, drenched in sweat with tears pouring down her face. She would never forgive herself for leaving him behind. 

Far away, on a Star Destroyer that orbited the atmosphere of some unknown planet, in some unknown system, a man who had once been a Master, brother, friend—flinched, startled out of his meditation. 

The voice that he had heard, the wash of agony he had felt over a bond that should have been long dead threw him back into his body. Back into the past. A past he had tried to _forget, escape, outrun._

A past he could never leave behind. A voice he would remember until his dying day because he could hear with startling clarity that same voice _teasing, screaming, crying, laughing._

She was alive. 

And she was grieving. Grieving him, who did not deserve to be mourned. 

He folded the thought away, and brought out the memory of his old apprentice, one of the few parts of him still wrapped in the light that his darkness tried to smother. 

And for just a moment, before he strode out of his quarters to be the Emperor’s monster, the terror of the galaxy once again, he let himself remember and a single tear slipped down his face for the first time in years. He would add her suffering to list of things he would never forgive himself for.


End file.
